There are a lot of stories around at the moment saying that lockdown killed almost as many people as coronavirus.

The news says lockdown killed 16,000.

The study seems to say 3,500.

It looks like many journalists didn't read the fine print. https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1292020794953019393

The reports are based on a 188 page study done for SAGE, which estimates only 25,000 of 32,000 covid-19 deaths recorded were "excess", and that 16,000 excess deaths had other causes.

The papers gloss over most of the relevant table though. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dhsconsgadho-direct-and-indirect-impacts-of-covid-19-on-excess-deaths-and-morbidity-15-july-2020

Yes, it estimates 16,000 non-covid excess deaths.

But 10,000 of those were in care homes and not really related to lockdown.

And lockdown also SAVED 2,500 lives due to reduced accidents, alcohol abuse, other infectious diseases etc.

Leaving 3,500 excess deaths due to lockdown.

The 10,000 excess care home deaths not directly related to covid-19 include causes such as people being discharged from hospital too soon or refused admission to hospital, due to the government's hospital bed clearing operation.

More info on that here - https://twitter.com/_johnbye/status/1262836340665827328

It also includes the impact of reduced levels of care due to staff being off sick or self isolating with covid-19 symptoms.

Again, this is nothing to do with lockdown, but the indirect effect of the virus, and government failures on testing.

More here - https://twitter.com/_johnbye/status/1255106096945156096?s=19

The reports also all ignore the negative numbers in the table.

2,000 less deaths than normal due to a reduction in accidents, alcohol abuse, childhood diseases etc and better air quality.

500 less deaths due to a reduction in heart and respiratory issues.

Thanks to lockdown.

Some alarmists are even quoting a bigger number of 81,500.

But this is based on an estimate of deaths looking 50 YEARS into the future, and includes 33,000 deaths caused by a recession that would have happened (at least to some extent) with or without lockdown.

So what the study actually seems to say about excess deaths is that, up to May 1st -

25,000 were caused by covid-19

10,000 were caused by issues in care homes

6,000 were caused by people not going to hospital

But 2,500 lives were also saved by other benefits of lockdown